PicoScope 9201A PC Sampling Oscilloscope from Pico Technology

The new PicoScope 9201A PC Sampling Oscilloscope is an essential tool for analysing electrical communications standards and characterising connectors, cables, IC packages and printed circuit boards. Unlike a real-time oscilloscope, the PicoScope 9201A builds up a picture of a repetitive signal by combining samples from a large number of cycles of the waveform. This enables it to achieve very high effective sampling rates (up to 5 TS/s) and fast time bases (10 ps/div to 50 ms/div) at a much lower cost than a real-time scope of comparable bandwidth.

The PicoScope 9201A has two 12-GHz input channels, enabling it to analyse a wide range of communication standards up to 6.6 Gb including Ethernet, SONET/SDH, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand, XAUI, G.703 up to 155 Mb, and ANSI T1 up to STS3. Mask limit tests for all these standards, and many more, are included. The powerful analysis functions include high-resolution cursors, automatic eye-pattern measurements with statistics, and FFT. The PicoScope 9201A also has two trigger inputs: a 1 GHz direct trigger and a 10 GHz prescaled trigger.

The PicoScope 9201A has 20% lower noise and 5 dB better inter-channel isolation than its predecessor, the PicoScope 9201, plus many other improved specifications. The PC software has also been upgraded with over 70 new standard masks such as RapidIO up to 3.125 Gb/s, PCI Express up to 5 Gb/s and Serial ATA up to 3 Gb/s. The scope connects to any Windows XP or Vista computer with a USB 2.0 port.

Unlike traditional, bulky bench-top instruments that contain a PC and a display, the PicoScope 9201A is housed in a compact enclosure that takes up very little space on your workbench. If you’re working at a customer’s premises, the only extra equipment you need to carry is a laptop and a mains adapter.

The PicoScope 9201A is on sale now, priced at only £5,995. This includes all of the features listed above, software updates downloaded from our website, and technical support.